When pigs get hit with significant illnesses during key stages of pregnancy, their immune response may negatively affect developing piglets, making them less productive on the farm. New research from the University of Illinois shows that when those piglets—especially males—experience a second stressor in early life, they are at higher risk of neurodevelopmental and other neurological...

Officials from California, New York and other states urged the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday to allow California to set its own automobile tailpipe pollution standards, which would reverse a Trump administration policy and could help usher in stricter emissions standards for new passenger vehicles nationwide.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Computational Biology Department in the School of Computer Science have developed a new process that could reinvigorate the search for natural product drugs to treat cancers, viral infections and other ailments.

Many salamanders can readily regenerate a lost limb, but adult mammals, including humans, cannot. Why this is the case is a scientific mystery that has fascinated observers of the natural world for thousands of years.

The organization of the human genome relies on physics of different states of matter—such as liquid and solid—a team of scientists has discovered. The findings, which reveal how the physical nature of the genome changes as cells transform to serve specific functions, point to new ways to potentially better understand disease and to create improved therapies for cancer and genetic disorders.

The future of electronic displays will be thin, flexible and durable. One barrier to this, however, is that one of the most widely used transparent conductors for electronic displays—indium tin oxide (ITO)—doesn't perform as well on larger areas and can crack and break down with wear. Indium is also a rare earth mineral, which is relatively scarce, and the process to create ITO requires high...

A new study from North Carolina State University found that certain types of messages could influence how people perceive information about the spread of diseases from wildlife to humans.

Don't look now, but you're surrounded. Really. Within arm's reach—probably even touching you—are troublesome, sticky, potentially even toxic, substances. Bad for the planet, permanent, maybe even bad for your health. They're in your shoes, in your phone, in your laptop, lurking in the folds of envelopes, on books, in the chair you're sitting in, the flooring beneath your feet, and in...

As its name suggests, dark matter—material which makes up about 85% of the mass in the universe—emits no light, eluding easy detection. Its properties, too, remain fairly obscure.

Short selling often gets a bad rap because it is a type of trade that bets against the success of a firm. In essence, short selling allows investors to borrow stock from a broker to sell into the market with the hope of buying the stock back at a cheaper price, thus, profiting on the difference between the sell and buy prices. Because of this practice, short selling is sometimes seen as a...

As the country gets vaccinated and begins to reopen, testing remains a key element of safe interactions. Rapid testing for COVID-19 has become more common and accessible, including over-the-counter (OTC) tests approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, puts five of these at-home rapid tests...

Do firms respond to tougher competition by searching for completely new technological solutions (exploration), or do they work to defend their position by improving current technologies (exploitation)?

Researchers have demonstrated "giant flexoelectricity" in soft elastomers that could improve robot movement range and make self-powered pacemakers a real possibility. In a paper published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from the University of Houston and Air Force Research Laboratory explain how to engineer ostensibly ordinary substances like silicone...

Whether they are in the technology or oil sector, selling shoes or healthcare products, for many companies, green is the new black. While maximizing profit might have been the sole priority for most businesses a decade ago, these days it is common for mission-oriented companies to pursue the "triple bottom line" of people, planet and profit, particularly through corporate social responsibility...

Gender wage gaps are a well-documented issue, and expectations related to this phenomenon seem to be present even among university students discussing future employment, according to a study published June 2, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ana Fernandes from the Berner Fachhochschule and the University of Fribourg and Martin Huber from the University of Fribourg, and Giannina Vaccaro...

Stone tools have been made by humans and their ancestors for millions of years. For archaeologists, these rocky remnants—lithic artifacts and flakes—are of key importance. Because of their high preservation potential, they are among the most common findings in archaeological excavations. Worldwide, numerical dating of these lithic artifacts, especially when they occur as surface findings,...

An analysis of sediment cores from the Bering Sea has revealed a recurring relationship between warmer climates and abrupt episodes of low-oxygen "dead zones" in the subarctic North Pacific Ocean over the past 1.2 million years.

Tested on human blood in the lab, the selective nanocapsules could reduce the side effects of a major blood clot dissolving drug, which include bleeding on the brain. If confirmed with animal tests, the nanocapsules could also make the drug more effective at lower doses.

Conservatives are less able to distinguish political truths from falsehoods than liberals, mainly because of a glut of right-leaning misinformation, a new national study conducted over six months shows.

Atomically thin van der Waals magnets are widely seen as the ultimate compact media for future magnetic data storage and fast data processing. Controlling the magnetic state of these materials in real-time, however, has proven difficult. But now, an international team of researchers led by Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) has managed to use light in order to change the anisotropy of a van...

Two Russian cosmonauts ventured for more than 7 hours outside the International Space Station to prepare for the arrival of a new Russian module.

In the universe's earliest moments, particles existed in an unimaginably hot plasma, whose behavior was governed by deeply complex webs of interaction between individual particles. Today, researchers can recreate these exotic conditions through high-energy collisions between heavy ions, whose products can tell us much about how hot, strongly-interacting matter behaves. Yet without extensive,...

The myriad processes occurring in biological cells may seem unbelievably complex at first glance. And yet, in principle, they are merely a logical succession of events, and could even be used to form digital circuits. Researchers have now developed a molecular switching circuit made of DNA, which can be used to mechanically alter gels, depending on the pH. DNA-based switching circuits could have...

Researchers from Sinai Health have published a study providing an ultra-detailed look at the organization of a living human cell, providing a new tool that can help scientists around the world better understand what happens during disease.